Lilah at two months

I can hardly believe that it’s been two whole months since Lilah has joined our family!

She has truly been the sweetest addition and it’s almost hard to believe she hasn’t been here all along.

I love looking back on James’s monthly updates, and reading about babies of similar ages on other moms’ blogs, so wanted to capture what little Lilah is up to these days.

Personality

It has been so fun to catch little glimpses of Lilah’s personality as she wakes up a little bit more from the sleepy newborn haze.

If I had to choose one word to describe her, it would be sweet. She seriously has the sweetest little smile and loves to snuggle.

She is not a super needy baby, she is often content to lay nearby and watch the action, but she does love to be held in the evening when she’s winding down before bed.

Her favorite things right now seem to be:

• Watching her big brother! She looks at him with complete adoration and it melts my heart every time.
• Staring at our ceiling fans – they are black against the white ceiling, so high contrast, and she loves them.
• Music – I frequently play classical music for her and it seems to really relax and captivate her. James loves to sing her Twinkle Twinkle too “to make her feel calm and peaceful”.
• Her mobiles and black and white book

Her dislikes include:

• Any clothing being put over her head
• Bath time
• Taking a late afternoon nap in her bassinet
• Loud sounds (aka giant buckets of Duplos being dumped onto the floor nearby….)

Sleep

I’m not going to go into too much detail on sleep because it changes so frequently! (If it takes me three days to write a post, the sleep section changes about four times…)

Overall, she is gradually sleeping for longer stretches (max has been 7 hours) at night, with some off nights thrown in there.

She almost always falls right back to sleep after waking up to eat at night these days, which is a new development – fingers crossed this continues!

She has days when all she wants to do is snooze and she takes multiple long naps, and days when she takes a series of 30 minute naps.

Her sleep has been steadily improving overall and she seems happy and well rested, so we’re pretty happy with it!

Routine

While she is certainly not on a clock-based schedule, it finally feels like we have a bit of a routine down, which is great news for this type-A mama!

She’s generally up for the day around 7-7:30. I feed her and we either hang out on the couch with James and read books (she loves laying on the couch next to me because it’s a prime viewing spot for the ceiling fan, which is pretty much her favorite thing ever) or she chills in her lounger or topponcino while James plays Duplos nearby.

She’s usually ready for her first nap after about 1 hour. I swaddle her (with one hand out because she loves to suck on her hand), sing her a song, and place her in her bassinet. Sometimes she falls asleep right away and sometimes I go in to soothe her once or twice.

Just a note – many Montessori families choose not to swaddle because it in some ways goes against the Montessori principle of freedom of movement. We choose to swaddle for sleep because of the SIDS prevention guidelines, and because I’ve found it really helps my children sleep – to each his own!

Her nap duration is all over the place right now – sometimes it’s 30 minutes, sometimes almost 3 hours, we never really know!

When she’s up from her first nap, we frequently have some sort of outing like the park, story time, or the Wildflower Center. Sometimes we just stay home or go for a walk around the neighborhood (James loves to ride his balance bike while we walk and is getting so good!)

Lilah generally snoozes in the Ergo or K’tan while we’re out.

We come home and James eats lunch, often while I feed Lilah. I help him get ready for his nap while Lilah either hangs out with her mirror and mobile, or lays nearby on her topponcino if she wants to be with us while we read books and sing songs.

This part of the day has gotten SO much easier now that she is out of the fussy newborn stage. There were some days that she screamed and cried the whole time we got ready for James’s nap and I felt so badly for both of them – not a restful way to go to bed.

Since she naps so frequently, she is generally ready for her third nap by the time James is in bed or soon after. This means I have at least 30 minutes to eat lunch or blitz clean the house, woohoo!

Some days she sleeps for his whole nap time and some days she’s up again quickly and we hang out together. These days are nice as well because I get some rare one on one time with her. I love laying next to her on the floor and just talking to / watching her. She gets the biggest smiles when we do this.

When James is up, he has a snack and we play at home most afternoons, often in the backyard. Lilah sometimes takes another nap in her bassinet, but this often ends up being in the K’Tan while I hang out with James in the backyard. She has a hard time falling asleep for this last nap, but the evening goes so much more smoothly if she gets at least a little power nap in the late afternoon.

On an ideal day, she wake up from her last nap around 5-5:30. This seems to work perfectly for a 7-7:30 bedtime.

We play or read books until my husband gets home, eat dinner, and begin the bedtime shenanigans. Lilah gets a bath every other day. She doesn’t love it, but she’s coming around.

I feed her and put her to bed while my husband does bath time with James, and then I help with his bed time.

She usually goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 – a recent development that has made me SO happy!

Like many newborns, she had been going to bed later, around 9. I went to bed around the same time since I was up with her at night and getting up early with James. This meant I had zero free time at night, which was a little tough. I love having time at night now to just zone out or catch up with my husband. It makes all the difference.

Of course every day is different, but this is generally how things are looking around here with a two month old and a two and a half year old.

I really love this not-quite-newborn, but still tiny stage. She is still super portable and snuggly, but now rarely cries unless she’s tired. Every stage is wonderful in its own way, and we are certainly enjoying this one!

If you have kids, did you like the newborn stage? It seems like some people love it and others much prefer older babies / kids.

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